But these 2 cameras are arguably the 2 most interesting and cutting edge cameras currently on the market

How do they stack up in the same scenes?

Yesterday I took my new XT1 with Fuji 55-200mm lens and my Sony A7r with a Canon 70-200 F4L on a Metabones 111 adapter. I sometimes used the AF of the Metabones adpater but often used manual focus with focus peaking (I still find the A7r focus peaking easier to use than even the split screen of the XT1 - I was surprised by that. Fuji coloured focus peaking is just not as good as Sony's although the Sony system has some critics. Mind you both really are very good and getting manual focus accurately was very easy on the XT1).

Some images seemed much the same between the 2 cameras. Others gave the Sony a definite edge with more 3D pop, more vivid and better DR (perhaps I should have swtiched DR from 100% to 200 or 400% on some shots but the Sony was set to auto so to be fair no diving into the menus).

I used Sony's intelligent auto setting and XT1 on auto ISO, auto aperture and auto shutter speed. Sony's is definitely more intelligent with virtually every shot accurately exposed. A got a few highlights blown out with the XT1 (DR was set to 100%, there is no auto DR on the XT1 like XE1 has) but almost everytime I got a keeper.

All images processed from RAWs using the latest Photo Ninja which has been updated for A7r and XT1. Ir does a nice job of RAW conversion of the Fuji and is much faster speedwise than LR which I find very very slow.

Sometimes with portraits I find XT1 a bit red biased and I need to knock back reds a tad.

XT1 AF tracking is amazing and very useful. It makes it much easier to photograph little kids.

I did get a bit of an ugly cyan sky I had to correct and the Sony one the sky was perfect.

XT1 was set to Provia.

Sharpness is amazing with both.

Barbary Sony A7r Canon 70-200mm F4L

Same Barbary Fuji XT1 55-200mm

Sony A7r Canon 70-200mm F4L

Fuji XT1 55-200mm

Sony A7r Canon 70-200mm F4L all manually focused

Fuji XT1 55-200mm

Sony A7r Canon 70-200mm F4L

Fuji XT1 55-200mm

Sony A7r Canon 70-200mm F4L

Fuji XT1 55-200mm I had to correct for some cyan skies just above the Bridge